Hacker Summer Camp Parties: BSides BlackHat DEFCON

Ok, here’s my corporate greed call-out of the day. I was dispatched today for a no-cool call. The indoor unit was running, but the outdoor unit wasn’t. The system was a 10-year-old Bryant Evolution high-end variable-capacity inverter system. After running the factory diagnostics, I found Code 77, indicating the inverter board was detecting excessive compressor startup current. Following the manufacturer’s diagnostic procedure, I disconnected the compressor leads to determine whether the fault was in the compressor or the inverter board. The results confirmed the inverter board had failed. The system is only 8 months out of warranty. At that point, I started preparing myself to tell the customer the repair would probably be around $1,500–$1,900. I figured the board would cost somewhere in the $800–$1,000 range. After all, it’s just a printed circuit board. Before giving the estimate, I called Carrier Enterprise for pricing. $8,900. Not for the entire outdoor unit. Not for a complete system. Just the inverter board. That’s not a typo. $8,900. In my opinion, this is the definition of engineered obsolescence. There is no reasonable justification for a replacement circuit board on a 10-year-old residential HVAC system to cost nearly nine thousand dollars. At that price, you’re essentially forcing the homeowner to replace the entire system instead of repairing it. This is exactly why I’ll never sell Carrier equipment. They make decent equipment, but pricing replacement parts like this turns a repairable system into a disposable one. Homeowners deserve better than that. Carrier Carrier Enterprise or anyone that’s sells this shit, care to elaborate why this board is so expensive? 🎩 Patrick Henning